


Put the Gun Down

by QuentinFuckingColdwater



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Torture, Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Could Be Read as Dark!Bucky, Dark, Established Relationship, Hallucinations, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Maybe - Freeform, So much angst, The Author Is A Mess, The Author Regrets Everything, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Torture, again maybe, ambiguous timeline, the author is sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:02:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9885416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuentinFuckingColdwater/pseuds/QuentinFuckingColdwater
Summary: This wasn't the first time that Tony Stark had woken up tied to a chair. His mind was moving slow, as if wading through a dense fog. So. He'd been drugged. Again, not the first time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Aight so I've had this bumping around my drafts for months and I'm in a hotel with wi-fi, so I went 'what the hell'. I apologize if this is trash

This wasn't the first time that Tony Stark had woken up tied to a chair. His mind was moving slow, as if wading through a dense fog. So. He'd been drugged. Again, not the first time.

Thick metal cuffs cut into his wrists, bordering on painful if he struggled too much, which Tony figured out within seconds. He scanned the room without moving his head: galvanized metal walls, concrete floor, something that resembled a forge in the far corner. No furniture except for the chair he was occupying.

"Y'know, my boyfriend is going to kick your ass when he comes to rescue me," Tony commented idly to the shadow that lurked (ha! real original) right outside the door to his cell. "Unless I can get myself free before then, and in that case, I'll be the one to do the ass-kicking..."

"You won't be going anywhere."

"Have you heard who I'm dating? Bucky Barnes, former deadly assassin? Best friends with Captain America? An Avenger? Not that I'm a damsel in distress. I'm Iron Man. Obviously. A thousand dollars says I'll be out of here within six hours..."

"Enough," the shadow snarled. "Send him in."

"Ooo, Mr. Cryptic over here. Is that your super-villain name? Or is it Captain Cryptic?"

Tony snapped his mouth shut as a different figure shoved past Mr. Cryptic. "Orders?" rasped a horribly familiar voice.

"Oh, God...Buck?"

Bucky stepped forward into the light. "Orders?" he repeated tonelessly.

"Buckaroo, baby, it's me. Bucky, please look at me," Tony babbled. He fought against the cuffs on his wrists and ankles. "What do you want from me? Let him go, I'll do anything you want. Do you need tech? Weapons? Just let him go."

"You know what to do, Asset."

"Can you hear me, Buck?"

"My ear drums are intact," the assassin replied, striding past Tony, just out of his reach. A hint of his cologne, mixed with the scent of stale sweat and dirt, hit Tony's nostrils and his eyes filled with tears.

"Please don't do this...whatever they told to do. I love you, Bucky."

His brow knitted, Bucky turned towards Tony as he slid his prosthetic into the forge's flaming coals. "Do you?"

"Don't do that! You'll get burnt!"

"Do you love me? You never mentioned it before."

What little restraint Tony had left failed, and he let the words rush out of him. "I've loved you for months, but I was scared. I thought you wouldn't love me back, that you would realize that you love Steve instead of me. I haven't been in a stable relationship, ever, and I didn't want to scare you off." Bucky made a soft noise at the back his throat, eyeing the cherry-red glow of his hand. "I love you. And I was afraid that you wouldn't feel the same way..."

"You are nothing," the Asset stated, taking long slow steps toward Tony. "Less than nothing. I won't kill you because it isn't worth the effort." He paused, held his glowing hand between them. Tony could feel the heat rising from it even from that distance. "Your father would be ashamed of you. Do you think he would cave like this under torture? He didn't cry when I murdered him."

"What? It was a car crash..."

A thin, cruel smile curled at his lips. "No, Tony. I killed them with these two hands. I squeezed the life out of Maria as she begged me for mercy." He reached out and caressed his boyfriend's cheek with the index finger of his prosthetic hand. It didn't hurt for the first two heartbeats, and Tony let himself believe that it was a dream. Or a drug fueled hallucination. Either was preferable to...white hot pain shorted out his thoughts and the scent of burning meat filled his nostrils.

"Kill me," he begged, time and again as his boyfriend  burnt his skin. When his eyes threatened to roll back in his head and let him escape to unconsciousness, the assassin would pause. Take a seat beside him, kick back in the chair (it appeared the first time that Tony had passed out, or maybe it had been there all along?) with only two legs on the ground.

"I've got all day, doll. You're my mission."

There was a glass of water on the table beside him. Sweat beaded on the surface, dripped to the floor. If only he could have a drink, a tiny sip of it...

The Asset noticed Tony's stare and picked up the glass. He took a big gulp, sighing. "It's hot in here...or is it just me?" he laughed, his eyes hard and sharp as flint.

Tony made a noise somewhere between a groan and a sob. He would've cried, but there were no tears left.

"You seem more awake now. Would you like a drink?"

He stared down at the floor, refusing to give the other man any satisfaction.

"C'mon, doll. If you beg, I'll let you have a sip." He waved the glass under his nose; Tony just turned his head and closed his eyes.

Quicker than Tony's gaze could catch, the Asset grabbed his jaw with his flesh hand and wrenched his head around. "Beg," he ordered. "Beg for it. If you can beg for death, I know you can beg for this."

He eventually let go, turned his back to him only to whirl around and backhand Tony with all the force he could muster. The glass shattered when he let it slip from his hand, spraying water across the floor. Cool drops hit his pants, soaked through the fabric and his eyes almost rolled back from the sensation. He was too far gone to panic from something as small as that, right? How much worse could it get for him?

A cold object touched his collarbone; Tony opened his eyes and cursed himself for thinking, for overthinking everything, only to see a sneer on his torturer's face. "Does that feel good, doll?" He pulled his hand back and showed him the splinter of glass in his hand, tracing it across his cheek to the hinge of his jaw. "Do you like that?" B- no, he wouldn't acknowledge him by name, wouldn't give him that power over him- he pressed his weight down and the glass bit into Tony's skin.

If he was honest with himself, he would have admitted that the pain was nothing compared to what had been inflicted on him before, in the caves, the heavy metal poisoning, falling from another dimension, but something about staring into Bucky's eyes made it different. A thousand times more personal and painful.

Tony's eyes drifted closed and he earned another slap. "Keep em open, doll. I want to see how much pain you're in."

The Asset engraved line after line into Tony's skin. "You look so beautiful when you bleed. You're my canvas."

"There's twenty four hours in a day and I want to spend every one of those making you bleed."

He finally drew back from Tony, letting the glass fall to the ground among the other shards and drops of blood. Tony could feel his strength draining out of the cuts, leaving him oddly cold and empty. It was a soul-deep absence of something vital.

He was dying, he was sure of it. His mind tried to run through calculations of how much blood he'd lost (about three pints, he guessed) and how much before it was irreversible (four pints of blood loss was almost always fatal). Absently, he wondered if he should be afraid as the world grayed at the edges. "Are you leaving me already, doll? That's a pity. It's been fun having you around. I'm sure I won't find anyone who'll look so good bleeding all over my floor." The assassin touched his face, his fingertips strangely gentle as he traced the cuts on Tony's cheeks, caressed his jaw, moving down until his hands were on the arc reactor, but Tony didn't care. He was escaping. With a quick turn of his wrist, the Asset unplugged Tony.

As the light faded from his world, the last thing Tony heard was Bucky crying out in horror. "Tony! No! Tony, I'm right here! Come back to me, doll..."

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think. Comments and kudos are always appreciated of course. <3
> 
> Title taken from a song by ZZ Ward: 
> 
> "Take what's mine, don't hurt me.  
> Steal my money/steal my car  
> Don't take my man, don't take my man.  
> Don't take my man cos you know you can-  
> Put the gun down."


End file.
